


friends gather no dust

by Nemainofthewater



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, Extra Treat, First Meetings, Friendship, Gen, Jon is an idiot, Pre-Canon, Some Swearing, Tim is bemused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:55:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21795682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemainofthewater/pseuds/Nemainofthewater
Summary: Tim and Jon's first meeting. Pre-canon
Relationships: Tim Stoker & Jonathan Sims
Comments: 12
Kudos: 88
Collections: Rusty Quill Secret Santa 2019





	friends gather no dust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Neutronbutt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neutronbutt/gifts).



Tim notices him the moment he steps into the library. Well. Notices is a strong word. It’s more accurate to say that he falls over him. It’s not his fault because literally nobody would expect to walk into the library to find someone sleeping on the floor. Not unless there’d been an especially rowdy party the night before, and despite the fact that this is Tim’s first day at his new job, he really doesn’t think the Magnus Institute is that sort of workplace.

No, the institute is as far away as possible form his last job, all polished marble and echoing halls and solemn faced employees hurrying around under the benevolent gaze of Elias Bouchard. And the spookiness, of course. Don’t get a lot of that in publishing. Not openly, in any case. Judging from the twenty-minute briefing on acceptable footwear he got from Bouchard’s PA, not to mention the three-inch onboarding packet he got handed to fill out (in triplicate!) he’s going to hazard a guess that they take themselves entirely too seriously around here.

“Hey!” Tim says once he realises what he tripped over is not a pile of dirty laundry someone has inexplicably left on the floor and once he’s surreptitiously checked that the man is still breathing. “Are you alright?”

The man groans. There’s a patch of drool leaking out from the side of his mouth and threatening the book that he’s using as his pillow. Instinctively Tim moves it out of harm’s way and the man’s head hits the floor with a sickening CRACK.

“Shit!”

Tim immediately drops to his knees and gently feels around the man’s head. There’s no blood: that’s the one good think about the situation. No blood which means probably no concussion and just a nasty bruise. He doesn’t know if it works that way. He and Danny (and he savagely pushed down the emotions that rise in his chest when he thinks of his brother) were definitely more the rough and tumble type of kids who wouldn’t bother crying when they fell over. No, instead they’d get even with whatever had caused the fall. Or in the likely instance that it was their own damned fault, then getting even with the person laughing at them. So he’s not great at judging that fine line between non-lethal-laugh-it-off and shit-you-should-be-at-hospital injuries.

The man in front of him…well, he looks like crap, honestly. Like a stiff wind would bowl him over. Even without the potential head wound he looks like he should be tucked up in bed somewhere with a bowl of soup, not lying on a library floor. The illusion of fragility and sickliness isn’t helped by the fact he’s groaning piteously as he wakes up. Desperately Tim tries to remember whether Rosie had pointed out where the first aid supplies are on her brief tour of the Institute. He’s drawing a blank.

“What-” the man slurs “-what’s happening?” He opens his eyes and looks up at Tim with ridiculously wide eyes. His pupils don’t look dilated, which from all Tim’s heard from modern media is a good sign. He males a mental note to go on a first aid course as soon as possible. 

“You- er,” Tim says, “Looks like you fell asleep, mate.” He doesn’t say anything about the book that he moved. Definitely because it’s irrelevant and not because he still feels guilty.

“That’s ridiculous!” the man splutters. Actually splutters. Is this guy for real?

“I’m not the one sprawled on the floor,” Tim says.

The man sits up with a groan and a creak of bones that make Tim wince. He can’t be more than a few years older than him despite his grey hair, but he moves like someone twice his age. He looks around himself with an air of faint surprise, blinking owlishly. After a moment he blushes. Ah. Looks like the memories have caught up to him.

“I’m, er,” the man says, “I have a deadline- I must have stayed later than- Sorry about-” He clears his throat, an embarrassed, prissy sound. Then he gingerly gets to his feet and makes an effort to smooth out the wrinkles from his clothes, though they might honestly be a lost cause. His hair is straight up on one side of his head, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed and Tim doesn’t bring it up.

Giving his clothes up as a lost cause, the man instead sticks out a hand in front of him. Tim looks down at it bemusedly.

“Jonathan Sims,” the man says, “Er- Junior Researcher.”

“Tim Stoker,” Tim replies, taking the hand and giving it a firm shake. Jonathan’s hand is slim and fine boned and soft. Tim suspects that only half of it is due to genetics and the other half due to a blatant disregard for anything as mundane as _food_. He seems the type. “Also Junior Researcher, as of today.”

Jonathan nods at him distractedly, reclaiming his hand from Tim’s grip, and starts gathering his books up from the floor and placing them neatly on a nearby desk. It’s only as he starts laying out a sheaf of loose, handwritten notes and a battered pen that Tim realises that he’s fully intending on getting back to work.

“Hold on a minute,” Tim says, “You can’t be serious?”

“What?” Jonathan snaps, “Thank you for your concern, Mr Stoker, but as you can see, I’ve got research to do and very little time to do it in. So, if you don’t mind-”

Tim rolls his eyes. What a drama queen.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” he says, plucking the pen from Jonathan’s hand and ignoring the outrage on his face.

“Excuse me- How dare-!”

“Come on Jonathan,” Tim says, interrupting his incoherent splutters, “I spotted a Prêt around the corner. I’ll get you a coffee and a croissant or something. My treat.”

“It’s Jon, actually,” Jonathan says, “What are you…?”

Tim places an arm around Jon’s shoulders and steers him out the library. “You can help me go through this onboarding paperwork,” he says, “Because it’s going to take me hours to complete. Did you get given this much when you started? Because I swear, these forms have the weirdest questions…”

“I don’t need any-!”

Jon’s stomach rumbles, interrupting what Tim is sure would have been an elegant and impassioned defence of his eating habits.

“Sure,” Tim says, “Look, it’ll just be half an hour or so and think of it this way: you’ll be helping me out, right? I mean, god forbid I don’t get all this paperwork perfect: I think that Bouchard might actually have an aneurism. Or he’ll make me do it again. Either way, you’ll be saving someone from a hospital trip.”

“A hospital trip…?”

Tim nods, keeping his face as serious as possible. “For when they have to amputate my hand for writer’s cramp,” he says.

Jon stares at him for a moment and then he barks out a laugh, almost immediately clapping a hand over his mouth to stifle it. Well, well. Looks like there’s a human being in there after all.

“You laugh,” Tim says, “But I hear it’s a serious business, writer’s cramp. There was this one guy I used to work with, and I swear he spent so long copy editing this manuscript his hand fell off…”

One day, Tim thinks, this is going to be a fun story to tell down the pub. Probably in front of the guy, after having dragged him out from his desk. But for now, he’ll settle for making sure Jon doesn’t die from starvation. Who the hell accidentally spends the night in a library? Workaholics and Jonathan Sims, apparently. He’s got his work cut out for him.

But listening to Jon try to stifle his laughter as Tim comes up with more and more ludicrous workplace injuries…yeah, maybe this job won’t be too bad.

**Author's Note:**

> I am on Tumblr as [Nemainofthewater ](https://nemainofthewater.tumblr.com)


End file.
